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There's a big difference between a venture backed tech product that doesn't work at the desired scale because of the laws of physics and a medical product that

There's a big difference between a venture backed tech product that doesn't work at the desired scale because of the laws of physics and a medical product that doesn't work because of phlebotomic reasons (also, procedural and calibration). And that difference is who gets hurt. uBeam is going to hurt the VCs, Theranos hurt everyone who relied on the results of their tests.

easytiger 10y ago
To be fair uBeam might also cause cancer, we just don't know. See another power related investment scam: Steorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn
- scandox 10y ago
  I had a hilarious experience being brought into a meeting at Steorn, designed to explain to potential investors and commentators the technology and the origins behind it. I'm not going to make any comment on the intentions of the founders or even on the technology itself. The presentation itself however was comically childlike and questions were answered with a circularity that was amazing to witness. What I noticed, though, was that if you ask penetrating questions and if someone calmly and persistently fails to address the core of your question then other people eventually accept that your question has been answered!
  - easytiger 10y ago
    They are still going strong orbo.com You can buy a phone that has a battery that will never run out, apparently. However it seems a lot of faults are found: http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/ http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/
- kiba 10y ago
  To be fair uBeam might also cause cancer, we just don't know. Doesn't everything cause cancer?
  - 11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
    Yes. There is no cure. There us no answer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2MGN_w4sU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2MGN_w4sU
- CyberDildonics 10y ago
  > To be fair uBeam might also cause cancer, we just don't know. Why would it cause cancer? Are they using electromagnetic radiation at a frequency high enough to cause deionization or are you joking?
yitchelle 10y ago
Anyone know if there have been any deaths or serious medical slip ups due to the Theranos debacle?
- dzdt 10y ago
  I think that would be a stastical question. Theranos recalled 10's of thousands of potentially inaccurate blood tests. Some of these were presumably the deciding factor in a treatment decision. Wild guess : 10% of the time a single test result may change the treatment decision. So that is order of 1000's of patients getting different treatment than their doctors would have chosen. Wild guess : 10% of unnesessary treatments have undesirable side-effects, 1% of missed treatments have an avoidable bad outcome. So my wild math is order of magnitude of 1000s of patients with unnessary expense, 100s of patients with unnesessary side effects, 10s of patients with avoidable bad outcomes.
  - yitchelle 10y ago
    Using statistics for this type of question always bugs me, but there is no other way to see the impact. Using stats has an effect of reducing the seriousness of an failure. I mean, we are dealing with life, health and death, serious stuff.
abhi3 10y ago
Theranos could eventually achieve what they promised, UBeam will never, they knew and pathologically lied.

easytiger 10y ago

To be fair uBeam might also cause cancer, we just don't know. See another power related investment scam: Steorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn

scandox 10y ago
I had a hilarious experience being brought into a meeting at Steorn, designed to explain to potential investors and commentators the technology and the origins behind it. I'm not going to make any comment on the intentions of the founders or even on the technology itself. The presentation itself however was comically childlike and questions were answered with a circularity that was amazing to witness. What I noticed, though, was that if you ask penetrating questions and if someone calmly and persistently fails to address the core of your question then other people eventually accept that your question has been answered!
- easytiger 10y ago
  They are still going strong orbo.com You can buy a phone that has a battery that will never run out, apparently. However it seems a lot of faults are found: http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/ http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/
kiba 10y ago
To be fair uBeam might also cause cancer, we just don't know. Doesn't everything cause cancer?
- 11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
  Yes. There is no cure. There us no answer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2MGN_w4sU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2MGN_w4sU
CyberDildonics 10y ago
> To be fair uBeam might also cause cancer, we just don't know. Why would it cause cancer? Are they using electromagnetic radiation at a frequency high enough to cause deionization or are you joking?

yitchelle 10y ago

Anyone know if there have been any deaths or serious medical slip ups due to the Theranos debacle?

dzdt 10y ago
I think that would be a stastical question. Theranos recalled 10's of thousands of potentially inaccurate blood tests. Some of these were presumably the deciding factor in a treatment decision. Wild guess : 10% of the time a single test result may change the treatment decision. So that is order of 1000's of patients getting different treatment than their doctors would have chosen. Wild guess : 10% of unnesessary treatments have undesirable side-effects, 1% of missed treatments have an avoidable bad outcome. So my wild math is order of magnitude of 1000s of patients with unnessary expense, 100s of patients with unnesessary side effects, 10s of patients with avoidable bad outcomes.
- yitchelle 10y ago
  Using statistics for this type of question always bugs me, but there is no other way to see the impact. Using stats has an effect of reducing the seriousness of an failure. I mean, we are dealing with life, health and death, serious stuff.

abhi3 10y ago

Theranos could eventually achieve what they promised, UBeam will never, they knew and pathologically lied.